“We really wanted it!”

The challenging year of 2021 has come to an end, and how – a wonderful 3-2 home win against Borussia Dortmund. A strong performance and a fantastic trio of goals saw the end of a three-game week come around with three hugely important points alongside it. “We had the right discussions after the Mainz game, analysed things clearly and prepared for BVB in the best possible way. We really wanted it – these three points do a lot of good for us in terms of the table,” said matchwinner Marco Richter, reflecting every Herthaner’s view. All the reaction to the game is here on herthabsc.com.

Marco Richter: We knew what to expect with the brilliance of Dortmund’s team, but nevertheless, we held up well against them, pressed them, created lots of chances and scored the goals we needed – we earned the win! Mainz was a total mess, but we had the right discussions after the game, analysed things clearly and prepared for BVB in the best possible way. We really wanted it – these three points do a lot of good for us in terms of the table. We’ll need to be fully on the gas from January; we want to earn as many points as possible, but I’m looking forward to a bit of a break.

Ishak Belfodil: This win is important for us. Our fans helped us bring the win home a lot in the closing stages. I’ve been injured for a long time but since arriving here I’ve felt better and been doing my all to help the team. I hope we can perform like this in lots of our games after the winter break, so that we start a winning run and get away from the relegation battle.

Maximilian Mittelstädt: We did what we set out to do. Of course, it was annoying for the opener to be disallowed, but we came back really well from going 1-0 down and never lost belief. Every single player put their all into the game, so we deserved the win. We didn’t just sit back and counter attack either; we also pushed on and went forward. We took our lessons from the game in Mainz and gave the right response! Everybody was knackered at the end because we’ve had a tough week. Our last home game was also tight at the end, but against Dortmund we earned our win in the 90 minutes.

Niklas Stark: It was great to get a home win to see out the year and put an early Christmas present under the tree for all our fans. The table makes for much nicer reading over Christmas now! I think the coach gave us the right words before the game – we were able to push a bit higher in our banks and pressed from the front, breaking up Dortmund’s play and winning the ball back. It helped us to play like that. This win means we can feel good going into the winter break.

Fredi Bobic: It was a great battle, on a tough pitch which probably played into our hands. We responded well to the mess we left on Tuesday night. The coach built the team back up after Mainz well and the lads showed huge heart, held their own and played with courage. Those are the main things, and after them the flowing football comes, which is something our fans want to see from the team. We’ll return to the pitch on December 29th. We want to be more stable, keep working hard and follow up on the last few good games we’ve had, because they were very good in general.